


The Difference Is In Those Little Details

by nekare



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekare/pseuds/nekare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post <i>Doomsday</i>, Rose tries to get on with her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Difference Is In Those Little Details

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the whole alt!Doctor theme.

She finds the TARDIS - _a_ TARDIS, she has to remind herself – on the middle of the street on the way back from work, a bag of groceries in her left hand and the right one trying to dissolve a knot of tension on her neck. She blinks several times at the blue box, mouth open, and when she gets closer she can see a scratch on the back part that she _knows_ she’s never seen before.

She circles the TARDIS, and just by the time she gets to the door, it opens with a crash, surprising her enough that she nearly drops the bag. A young blond man comes out, dressed in the most ridiculous cricket ensemble, and Rose’s heart goes erratic. She’s never met him, but she has. The man’s a paradox on his own.

This unknown Doctor seems to be almost as startled as she is. He’s still holding the door’s handle, and he’s staring at her. “Hullo. Do I know you?” he asks with a little frown.

“No – no, I don’t think you do,” Rose says with a smile. The bag feels suddenly heavier.

She keeps on walking.

\---

She sees him on the news after that, blue eyes and northern accent and that jacket she hadn’t seen for years. Her hand stills in the process of taking popcorn to her mouth, and she just stares at the screen, silently. The Doctor seems to be yelling at the camera, no big surprise there.

Her mother enters the room with a glass of water between her hands, and she drops it to the ground as soon as she sees the image on the telly. “That’s the Doctor!” she cries as if Rose hasn’t figured it out already, eyes open wide. The plastic glass rolls around the floor, and as Jackie walks further into the room, she steps on the puddle of water. “It is, it _is_ hi--”

“It’s not, mum,” Rose cuts in.

“What?” Jackie tears her eyes out of the screen to look at her, but Rose keeps on looking ahead of her.

“He’s not _my_ Doctor.” She doesn’t say anything else; because she knows her mother won’t understand.

Jackie might have gotten a husband back, but Rose isn’t so sure she got a father.

\---

Working for Torchwood is far more cathartic than she had imagined, and instead of bringing her down, dealing with slimy aliens on a daily-basis makes her feel in control of her life, even if it is a reminder of what she’s lost.

Her job is interesting, challenging, and if it still lacks that spark that the Doctor’s laugh gave it, well, she tries not to think too much about it. She sees Mickey on the office everyday, and he’s already teaching her about weaponry, so if she wants to, she can join his and Jake’s commando. She doesn’t think she’s quite cut out for that, but she’s found out firing guns is awfully therapeutic. Go figure.

Some days, she feels as the heroine of some odd detective novel, especially as she infiltrates every possible place, it seems, from business companies to local churches, in search for alien influence. She uses the lying tricks Captain Jack taught her, but keeps the smiles she used with the Doctor to herself. She’s good at what she does, and when the Sycorax invade _this_ earth, she’s the one that steps up against them, the Big Bad Wolf in her red hood.

She finds some of the files dedicated to him. And she’s pleased to find that even in this parallel world, the Doctor is still as evasive and odd and persecuted as in the other. There are a myriad of witnesses claiming he’s helped them more than anybody else, and Rose smiles a bit to herself. He had enraged Edward VII, though, Not Queen Victoria. Pretty close, still.

Eight months later, and she founds herself alone in Liverpool’s docks after nighttime, the only sound the one of the dark waves crashing against concrete. Her hair smells like salt, and her hands are cold. If she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine another set of footsteps behind her, and she grins and starts running, stumbling a bit with the low heels she’s got on; running and running from an invisible threat just like in the old days.

She extends her hand without thinking, waiting for the Doctor to hold it and drag her along just like in so many other chases, and when her hand only meets the cool air, her smile falters. There’s no one but her.

She keeps on running anyway. Trying to get away of her memories, perhaps.

\---

He’s old the next time she sees him.

He’s wearing ruffles _everywhere_ , and walking next to him there’s a girl that can only be a young Sarah Jane, smiling so broadly that Rose is reminded of herself.

Rose’s heart beats harder anyway.

\---

Patagonia is almost as cold as Norway, Rose discovers while on a field trip, while investigating a meteor rock that melted an iceberg the size of her apartment building, causing floods all over Argentina’s coasts. Her head still aches from trying to remember whatever little Spanish she had learned in school, and she had slipped on the ice a thousand times before she asked the helicopter captain to just please, _please_ leave her on the beach. There are penguins in there, and she sits on the sand and watches them play, or, in case of the most daring ones, sees them throw themselves into the cold water from the large rocks protruding on the beach. She smiles at them, and gets close enough to pet one of them before she alerts the short birds.

She dips her fingertips on the water, when a foamy-white wave reaches her, and they nearly turn blue from the cold. She buries herself deeper in her thick jacket and long, trailing scarf.

The telltale sound of the TARDIS materializing breaks the silence, and Rose chuckles to herself, closing her eyes for a second. She follows the sound, almost instinctively, her footprints getting washed away by the clear-blue sea. It’s almost as if destiny was taunting her.

The blue box comes to view, and she stops when she sees him. _Him_ , brown hair and blue pinstripes and ridiculously looking white shoes. He’s smiling. The last time she saw the Doctor - in flesh and bone, not the ghostly, untouchable impression of his that still reminds her too much of the first goodbye he ever said to her – he was screaming her name in anguish.

The Doctor is standing on some rocks that seem to have crawled up from the ocean, shells and seaweeds hanging from them. He’s taking some sort of water sample, wearing those geeky glasses that Rose never told him that looked so good on him. The TARDIS is just some steps away, and a pretty black girl is sitting halfway out and halfway in, yelling at him to hurry up so they can get away from the darn cold. Rose smiles. Good, so at least he’s not alone.

(And she can’t help but wonder about _her_ Doctor. Is _he_ alone? She hopes not.)

She approaches silently, getting advantage of the sand muffling her steps. The girl notices her first, but doesn’t say anything – she just frowns at Rose. “Hello, Doctor,” Rose says as she steps on rocks, jumping from one crab-infested rock to another. He turns towards her so fast that he almost falls. He regains his balance, and then he just stares at her for a moment, the sample recipient still in his hand.

“Er, hello?” he says, and Rose has to smile a bit. The Doctor squints a bit at her, and then asks, “Wait a minute, haven’t I seen you before?” She jumps another rock until she’s next to him, and then, without giving him any warning, she cups his head between her hands and kisses him. His lips are cold, chapped almost to the point of bleeding – it must be for all that smiling. He doesn’t quite respond, but he doesn’t quite move back, either.

Rose steps back enough to be able to see the astonishment on his face, and grins at him. “Um. Blonde lady, whoever you are, I know my animal magnetism is fiercely strong and all that, but if you could try to refrain from that, I’m sure there’s some agreement we could reach, and - ”

“Shush, now.” He shuts up immediately.

God, but she had forgotten how much he could talk.

She holds his free hand, and savors the moment. She lets his fingers go just a second later. “Goodbye, Doctor.” she says, looking him in the eyes. She turns around, and starts walking in the direction of the town, with what feels like two sets of eyes burning on her back.

She doesn’t look back, because she knows she’d be tempted to stay, then.

\---

Rose isn’t quite sure how, but the Doctor appears on her doorframe that night, and she’s not one to miss an opportunity. So she kisses him again, and he kisses her back, and they stumble to the bed. He runs her hands over her body, and she can’t stop thinking over an over that that’s what she had needed to be, a complete stranger, for the Doctor to finally taste _her_ skin and tell her the exact chemical composition of her sweat.

( _Who are you?_ he whispers into her ear, and she’s sure he has to read her lips to understand her when she answers _No one you know._ )

So she shags him (desperate, madly, intense), and he’s gone in the morning. Nothing she hadn’t expected. She tells herself it was only for old time’s sake, to finally have something real to remember and nothing else, and for once, she means it.

Rose cries a bit in the tub, her knees close to her chest, and she’s kind of distraught for a while. She still feels as if she’s grown up, though.

She lets go of him.

(And it finally feels like it is her own choice).


End file.
